History of the Popular Republican Movement
Overview The Popular Republican Movement is a major Falleen political party that has existed since 570AER. Though this makes it a relatively young party, it has served in government for almost the entirety of its existence. It has been a frequent partner for the Labour Democrats in both government and opposition, while it has a mixed relationship with the Conservative & Imperialist Party and a long and bitter rivalry with the Coalition of Conservative Unionists. Formation PRM was founded on June 14, 570AER in an office park located at 109 East Park Place, Tapanuo. It was the brainchild of local television news reporter Stuart Ponsonby, who would become the party chairman. He was legally helped in the formation of the party by his good friend and lawyer, Jeff Sessions, who was subsequently made the parliamentary leader of the party. Other prominent acquisitions by the party included political commentator Arlen Specter, who was signed on as spokesman of the party, and longtime government accountability activist Sheldon Whitehouse, who would later become well-known as Deputy Imperial Chancellor who served before and throughout World War Three, and later as leader of the opposition to the James Brokenshire administration. First Election and the Purple Coalition (571-575AER) Election Campaign The Popular Republican Movement contested its first election in 571AER. After launching with a pamphlet campaign, PRM surrogates made stump speeches around the country, most often focusing on the economy. The election campaign was marked by sniping back and forth between the Popular Republicans and another new party, the Falleentium Conservative and Reform Party, which PRM criticized for their right-wing extremist rhetoric. The two parties would remain bitter rivals for over a decade, and still are to this day. Results The result of this election gave 5% of the vote to the Popular Republican Movement - 9th place out of 14 parties overall. Assuming that UKIP, which was again victorious, would form a conservative government with other right-wing parties, the Popular Republicans negotiated to become a member of the Socialist Party-led opposition. However, this quickly changed as UKIP leader Angela Merkel, a centrist, approached the Socialist Party, the Popular Republican Movement, and the Center Party to form a moderate "purple coalition" to govern, rejecting the hardline right-wing parties. The governing coalition of UKIP, SP, and PRM formed a 51.6% majority of the vote share. This expanded to 55.6% with the support of CP. Popular Republicans Jeff Sessions and Donald Rumsfeld served in the second Angela Merkel cabinet as Home Secretary and Education Secretary, respectively. Opposition to the Government The official opposition to this government came from the National Socialist Union, which had become the third-largest party in the Chamber of Deputies after a merger with The Alternative. The opposition from this party was generally characterized as weak and ineffective, however; the NSU had a poor attendance record for voting in parliament, and did not contest the subsequent 575 elections. The government was opposed most vocally by the Falleentium Conservative and Reform Party, which styled itself 'the real opposition'. Tenure The Popular Republican Movement was a minor partner in the government, but nevertheless received a few high-profile cabinet appointments and introduced some of its own legislation. Party Leader Jeff Sessions received the distinction of leading the prestigious Home Office, and Popular Republican MPs introduced their first bills, including the well-known Buy Falleen, Hire Falleen Act and the Wage Disparity Act. The party also helped pass the government's successful tax reform and budget that reduced the federal deficit. As a Major Governing Party (575-577AER) Campaign At the beginning of 575AER, Jeff Sessions announced that he would step down as parliamentary leader and chancellor candidate for the Popular Republicans. He was replaced by another early party member, Sheldon Whitehouse. The party ran a positive and vigorous campaign, including a series of debates where Spokesman Arlen Specter represented PRM views on a host of topics. On the eve of the election, UKIP and SP mutually ruled out working in a coalition with each other, ending the possibility of a continuation of the governing electoral alliance of the past four years - a development which former leader Sessions described as "saddening". Results Whitehouse delivered a commanding electoral result of 12.5% - an improvement of 7.5% over the previous election, making PRM the party with the strongest growth since the last election. The Popular Republicans were therefore in the position to play kingmaker, as UKIP and SP both courted Whitehouse for an electoral alliance that would effectively decide who ran government for the next legislative session. Ultimately, Whitehouse chose to support Willy Brandt and the Socialists. Starkly different foreign policy views are attributed to the failure of UKIP's Amber Rudd, who was more conservative than Merkel, to win PRM's support. The New Progressives formed the third arm of the coalition, which brought the Government up to 43% of parliament. However, it also had the support of the Federal Liberal Party and the Center Party, bringing the total to 51%. These five parties formed the Cabinet of Willy Brandt, a Progressive-Socialist government. PRM's Sheldon Whitehouse became Deputy Imperial Chancellor, Donald Rumsfeld retained his position as Secretary of Education, Tulsi Gabbard was appointed Foreign Secretary, and Willi Stoph was appointed Secretary of Infrastructure and Transport in this cabinet. In response to the party's success and climbing membership numbers, the Ponsonby Press periodical newspaper was launched as a free service to paying party members. Opposition to the Government As UKIP received 24% of the vote, it was nearly as large as all other non-government parties combined, and formed the opposition. UKIP turned down offers to form a larger opposition coalition with the FCRP and Moderate Party, and instead stood alone in opposition. Tenure Sheldon Whitehouse commented about the difficulty his party faced passing legislation in this session of parliament; legislation was dependent on an unwieldy five-party alliance to get to 50% in the Chamber of Deputies - a prospect complicated by the Federal Liberals' opposition to many PRM policy priorities. Still, though the governing term lasted less than three years, the government passed a respectable amount of legislation. This included the addition of the Excise Duties Tax - a more progressive response to UKIP's calls for a regressive Value Added Tax. A recurring 3.5 billion fall per year investment fund was set up to improve education, and 10 billion fall was allocated to the state governments to pay for infrastructure expansions and maintenance. Additionally, a budget was passed which nearly erased the deficit. However, most Popular Republican bills were ultimately defeated in the Imperial Senate. The first Willy Brandt Administration ended on a sour note when Hastiga and Veldunium voted to leave the Falleen Empire. Leadership Contest Announcement Sheldon Whitehouse called for a leadership challenge to unify and energize the party after suffering slim defeats to the "leave" campaigns in the independence referenda of Hastiga and Veldunium in December of 577AER. Speculative candidates included Foreign Secretary Tulsi Gabbard, Secretary of Infrastructure and Transport Willi Stoph, Secretary of Education Donald Rumsfeld, MP John Fetterman, and MP Cumbernick Bandersnatch. However, no challengers formally entered the contest against Whitehouse as the outbreak of war against the Red Federation occurred only days later. The Third World War (577-582) On December 19th, the Red Federation and Islamic League conducted surprise attacks against the Nilira Alliance, Alliance of the East, and Malruricaian Confederation on many fronts, initiating the Third World War. The government was reformed the next day as the Cabinet of Willy Brandt II, with all federal parties invited to participate as a wartime unity cabinet. However, the partisan drama did not end there, as UKIP was not included in the cabinet after their request to replace Whitehouse as Deputy Chancellor and FLP's Truman Nash as Home Secretary were denied. Jeff Sessions returned to the cabinet to serve as Under-Secretary for Aircraft Production under Secretary for War Production Michael Bloomberg, where he introduced a new slate of aircraft designs. Socialist Party Reformation In the midst of the war in late 578, the General Secretary of the Socialist Party, Christine Lagarde - a centre-left progressive who won her election in an upset victory against Willy Brandt ally Ban Ki Moon - announced the rebranding of the Socialist Party as the Democratic Labour Party as part of a plan for the party to move towards policies that are more business-friendly and less decidedly left-wing. There was some fear that the DLP would encroach upon PRM's ideological territory and cause electoral problems, or even provoke a takeover of PRM by a more conservative or left-wing candidate in leadership elections. Secretary Gabbard's Resignation In mid-579AER Secretary of Foreign Affairs Tulsi Gabbard struck a deal with the Vanossian government on the future of the United Republic of Caornum-Naorlum, which was largely under Vanossian occupation following the nation's defeat to Vanossian-backed Naorlum separatists in it's civil war. As rumor began spreading that the Senate might reject the deal, Gabbard threatened to resign if the bill failed, saying that the bill's failure could irreparably damage the prospects of reconciling Vanossium with the Nilira Alliance, possibly so much as to guarantee a future war against the Union of the West. Nevertheless, the Imperial Senate handily defeated her deal. Keeping her word, Gabbard resigned as Foreign Secretary. This stirred some controversy, with Under-Secretary Alan Duncan criticizing her for causing instability in the Foreign Office through her resignation. Nevertheless, the Foreign Office was re-occupied by Popular Republican Jimmy Carter in Gabbard's stead. Resuming the Leadership Challenge The Popular Republican Movement resumed its leadership contest in November 579. Incumbent Sheldon Whitehouse faced challengers Secretary Willi Stoph, Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and MP Cumbernick Bandersnatch. The four faced off in a televised debate in December of the same year, hosted by FBC News moderator Tom Tucker with guest moderator Perch Perkins of the Ponsonby Press. The major question in the contest was whether incumbent Sheldon Whitehouse could be kept under 50% of the vote in the first ballot so as to force a two-candidate runoff. Although a post-debate poll indicated it was likely that Stoph would advance to a runoff against Whitehouse, several late factors contributed to a stronger-than-expected 59% victory for Whitehouse. These included PRM topping a national public opinion poll for the first time ever and controversial statements made by UKIP MP Alexander Thorn that were perceived as damaging to Cumbernick Bandersnatch's campaign. Ending the War As the war began to come to a close, the Popular Republican Movement expanded its lead in the mainstream polls, going up to 21%. However it faced enormous pressure, along with the DLP, to end the war soon as possible. Notably UKIP and CCU mounted attacks on Chancellor Brant in particular, but also at least partially at PRM for prolonging the war. Common themes of the attacks were that Brandt was prolonging the war due to DLP's low poll numbers so that he wouldn't have to face the voters again so soon. PRM widely condemned these attacks as slander. Nevertheless, peace was made fairly shortly afterwards when the Red Federation initiated a ceasefire and evacuated Jaharnum. Imperial Chancellor Willy Brandt and Foreign Secretary Jimmy Carter drafted the peace document that eventually was approved by all parties involved. Leading the Opposition (582-583) Campaign PRM maintained its lead in voter opinion polls at 21% through 582, only seriously challenged by the Coalition of Conservative Unionists. UKIP and the Democratic Labour Party were in a distant second tier in the low- to mid-teens, followed by a slew of other declared parties. Once the election season officially began, PRM and CCU maintained statistical ties in the polls at around 20%. The Popular Republicans campaigned hard for this election, fully hoping to form the next government. Sheldon Whitehouse personally debated most of the other major candidates in a sanctioned debate. The promises central to his campaign were to balance the federal budget after the treasury had been throttled by wartime expenses; protecting Falleen entitlements; solving the student debt crisis; and introduce targeted tax deductions to reward pro-job business behavior as an alternative to broad tax cuts proposed by the right-wing. His positions - specifically on the budget - were attacked by Chancellor Brandt from the left for being "controlled by right-wing budget hawks" and by various parties on the right for rejecting welfare cuts and tax reform. Results PRM received the largest total vote count in the election, although the CCU received the same number of parliamentary seats. Whitehouse originally attempted to recreate the 571-575 administration by inviting UKIP and the Democratic Labour Party to talk about forming a coalition, but UKIP's leader Ruth Davidson became disinterested when Whitehouse refused to support repealing the Inheritance Tax. UKIP ultimately sided with CCU to form a right-wing government. PRM briefly pursued a governing coalition with DLP and the United Left Coalition, but centre to centre-right actors inside PRM sunk the deal before the ink was even dry. PRM and DLP entered an opposition coalition, with the support of the new Faithful Falleen Distributist Party and the New Progressives. Tenure The opposition stood against then-Chancellor James Brokenshire's agenda, which included tax cuts that disproportionately favored the wealthy; a budget where such fundamentals as courts of law, police departments, and education spending were the targets of deep cuts; and to an extent, the privatization of student loans. However, they ultimately could not stop legislation from passing while the government had 51% support in the Chamber of Deputies. However, that level of support only lasted for a year-and-a-half before the CCU lost the support of two parties after a disastrous attempt to decree a budget into law which had been rejected by the Chamber of Deputies. Brokenshire attempted to stay on as Chancellor with only 33% parliamentary support, but resigned only a week later amid a vote of no confidence which he expected to pass. This may have been an error on his part, as the motion was in fact unlikely to reach 50%+1 votes. Leading Government (584-present) Campaign A brief election campaign followed James Brokenshire's resignation as Chancellor, in which PRM blasted the CCU's job performance, citing poor judgment, sluggish pace, and overall lack of leadership. Results At the end of it, PRM maintained its 20% vote share, albeit while having fewer total votes and one fewer MPs than the previous election. However, the coalition which formed the PRM opposition collectively gained 33 seats while the CCU alone lost 51 seats. Maintaining the same PRM-LabDem-FFDP-NP coalition that had previously served as the opposition, Sheldon Whitehouse built a 44% Minority government and became the 26th Imperial Chancellor of Falleentium. Though the lack of majority support was ridiculed by new CCU leader Henrik Verwoerd, the government considered itself largely able to count on the support of the United Left Coalition on policy, which alone would bring support up to 50%. Tenure Quickly forming a cabinet and government programme, the Whitehouse Administration sought to quickly pass key legislation. So far, however, issues involving the Verzarian Front in Verzoonium have occupied the center stage.Category:The Imperial Constitution Category:The Popular Republican Movement